682 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



specimens, and other regions have added to the number. Of the snake-like 

 species, part without limbs, and others with feeble limbs, Cope has made out 

 over a dozen species from Linton. Phlegetliontia linearis of Cope had no limbs, 

 and the proportion of a Whip-snake ; and Molrjopliis macrurus was nearly 

 of the size of the common Rattlesnake. One of these nearly snake-like 

 species, Ptyonius serrula of Cope, is represented in Fig. 1112 ; it had hind- 

 limbs, but no fore-limbs. A four-limbed, Salamander-like species, Pelion 

 Lyelli, from Linton, described in 1857 by Wyman, is shown in Fig. 1109 ; and 

 in Fig. 1108, another species, the Ampliihamus grandiceps of Cope, from 

 Illinois. Leptop)hractus obsoletus Cope, from Linton, of Alligator size, had 

 stout teeth three fourths of an inch long. 



ISTova Scotia has afforded species of Dendrerpeton and Hylerpeton of Owen, 

 and of Hylonomus of Dawson, the last peculiar in having a slender head. 

 The Nova Scotia species come mostly from the South Joggins, where they 

 were first discovered by Lyell and Dawson in 1851. They were found in 

 the sandstone filling the once hollow trunks of large Sigillariae, along with 

 land-shells (Pupa vetusta, Fig. 1081) and Myriapods (Xylobiiis sigillarice, 

 Fig. 1092); and leaves of Ferns and Cycads, and this mode of occurrence 

 suggested the name Dendrerpeton (or tree-reptile). The conditions appear 

 to show that the hollow stumps, the poor pithy wood of which had decayed 

 as they stood in the marshes, were the resort of the Amphibians, and a 

 catch-place for other species of the wet region ; or, that the shells were 

 the food of the Amphibians, as Dawson suggests, who states that he has 

 found, in the stomach of a recent Menobranchus (M. lateralis Harlan), as 

 many as 11 unbroken shells of the fresh-water snail, Physa heterostropha. In 

 1876, Dawson obtained at the Joggins, from a stump 18 inches in diameter, 

 remains of 13 Amphibian skeletons, pertaining probably to six species. The 

 Baphetes planiceps Owen, of Nova Scotia, had a head 3^ inches broad. 



The South Joggins has also afforded, about 5000 feet below the top of 

 the Coal-measures, two biconcave vertebrae (Fig. 1111, with the cross-section, 

 1111 a), which are the basis of the s^Decies Eosaurus Acadianus Marsh. The 

 vertebrae resemble those of an Enaliosaur (Sea-Saurian, page 785), but, as 

 observed by Huxley, from his observations on the Antliracosaurus Russelli 

 of the British Coal-measures, and, as recognized by Marsh, they probably 

 belonged to a large Amphibian. 



Footprints of Amphibians occur in the Coal-measures of Pennsylvania, 

 Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, and Nova Scotia. Figs. 1113 to 1116 represent 

 tracks of four out of five species described by Marsh from the middle of 

 the Coal-measures in Osage, Kan. All are from one surface about 12 feet 

 square. Between the right and left tracks in Fig. 1113, there is the im- 

 pression of the tail. In the tracks of Dromopus, having long slender toes, 

 the phalanges or joints are very distinct, and on account of the form, Marsh 

 questions whether the species may not have been Reptilian; but he regards 

 the sweep of the foot in walking, indicated by the lines between the two 

 tracks to the right, as favoring Amphibian relations. So many kinds of 



